Xlibris Critic's Choice

The Sea and the Hills: The Life of Hussain Najadi

by Hussain Najadi

Our recent reviews here at Xlibris Indie Authors Roundup have highlighted some great writers in the science fiction and thriller genres. Today we’d like to shift gears a little and present The Sea and the Hills: The Life of Hussain Najadi, an autobiography by financier Hussain Najadi. A native of Bahrain, Hussain’s road took him through the Middle East and Europe, and Xlibris is proud to be a part of his journey.

The full Clarion review can be read here, but we will present the highlights:

In his autobiography, a rags-to-riches-to-prison-garb story spiced with episodes of rebelliousness and revelation, international financier Hussain Najadi admits that he was a mischievous child. Najadi’s life is driven as much by hard work as by “kismet,” he believes: “Till today my life continues to be shaped by people who appear suddenly and propel me to new heights or save me from disaster or affect me in some other profound way.” It is these people and how he stumbles upon them that make The Sea and the Hills: The Life of Hussain Najadi an entertaining read.

The best part of the book is the first half, where Najadi writes cleverly and amusingly of his youth. His nostalgia for those heady days comes across in the early chapters, as he travels from his native Bahrain to Lebanon, Iran, Italy, Germany, Switzerland. He drops many little gems along the way, among them, “I’ve been an encyclopedia salesman. I know the hardest part is to get in the door. If you don’t get in, you can’t say a thing.”

Eventually, Najadi goes to Asia. There he sets up a unique development banking network aimed at gathering together Arab money, Asian labor and resources, and Western know-how.

As this son of “a vegetable salesman in the bazaar” rises in the world of international high finance, the reader travels with Najadi to meet with presidents, kings, ministers of state, and captains of industry (and banking).

Now in his mid-seventies, the author muses on how “from a leftist idealist I had become a capitalist (with a conscience) and am now back to being an idealist, concerned with creating a more equitable world in which everyone is able to share the fruits of our global resources.” Rather than just amass personal wealth, Najadi devotes himself to “helping others make the most of what they have.”

The Sea and the Hills: The Life of Hussain Najadi, is more than just a memoir of a man with a talent for high finance. It is, as the cover notes, a story of “oil, politics and justice,” and it is the latter that makes the book a good and worthwhile read.